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clara_ward's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
5.0
The structure of this anthology fascinates me. A couple of pages before each story help to place it in a timeline, on a planet, and relative to perspectives offered in other stories. This allows various authors to lean into fantasy or science fiction, using mythic or more modern language, and build a shared world series with both magic and technology augmenting the power of sound and being heard.
“The Way of Baa’gh” by Cheryl S. Ntumy offers double-takes on culture from an elder’s point of view, and in this case, the elder is a crab-like extraterrestrial. “Undulation” by Stephen Embleton explores motherhood layer by layer while overturning other assumptions. “Lost in Echoes” by Xan Van Rooyen won me over with a protagonist I would happily follow for the length of a novel, even if he never left the dance club. That said, each of these gems shines brighter when read within the intricate storytelling framework of the full anthology.
“The Way of Baa’gh” by Cheryl S. Ntumy offers double-takes on culture from an elder’s point of view, and in this case, the elder is a crab-like extraterrestrial. “Undulation” by Stephen Embleton explores motherhood layer by layer while overturning other assumptions. “Lost in Echoes” by Xan Van Rooyen won me over with a protagonist I would happily follow for the length of a novel, even if he never left the dance club. That said, each of these gems shines brighter when read within the intricate storytelling framework of the full anthology.
edebell's review
adventurous
inspiring
mysterious
fast-paced
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
5.0
Mothersound is the birth of a new fandom, a new passion, a new experience made of spirit, collaboration, and absolute awesomeness, through one book of stories. An infant of infinite potential, if the sounds of its deep, healing cries are heard by a rattling world.
A whole group of talented and visionary African writers have collaboratively and thoughtfully built a system of two stars and five planets: Sauúti.
Are you listening?
As a reader, this is a new, non-corporate fandom of global connection and hope. This is how we win. This is how we immerse into something anti-colonial, anti-capitalistic, filled with the joy and promise of reality and impossibility alike. What if the impossible is possible? What if we hold our powers, ourselves and together in a song of being?
As a writer and an editor, every story opens a cascade of story ideas of what could be explored through this structure, these worlds. I am on the edge of my seat to see what landscapes of the material and ethereal the writers of the continent and diaspora of Mother Africa create from these first seeds. I am a worldbuilder, and damn, this is worldbuilding at its best.
As a nerd, the nerd train is heading out of nerd station and you might wanna hop on. CHOO CHOO!
And yes, it's a book! Of stories! This first collection, Mothersound, edited by future legend Wole Talabi, lovingly, beckoningly introduces the Sauúti universe from its lost pasts through its epochs and into the ominous undulations of futures to come. Yes, these are stories, worthy in their own right, but they are so much more - they offer the promise of infinite stories to tell, and infinite ways to tell them.
A whole group of talented and visionary African writers have collaboratively and thoughtfully built a system of two stars and five planets: Sauúti.
Are you listening?
As a reader, this is a new, non-corporate fandom of global connection and hope. This is how we win. This is how we immerse into something anti-colonial, anti-capitalistic, filled with the joy and promise of reality and impossibility alike. What if the impossible is possible? What if we hold our powers, ourselves and together in a song of being?
As a writer and an editor, every story opens a cascade of story ideas of what could be explored through this structure, these worlds. I am on the edge of my seat to see what landscapes of the material and ethereal the writers of the continent and diaspora of Mother Africa create from these first seeds. I am a worldbuilder, and damn, this is worldbuilding at its best.
As a nerd, the nerd train is heading out of nerd station and you might wanna hop on. CHOO CHOO!
And yes, it's a book! Of stories! This first collection, Mothersound, edited by future legend Wole Talabi, lovingly, beckoningly introduces the Sauúti universe from its lost pasts through its epochs and into the ominous undulations of futures to come. Yes, these are stories, worthy in their own right, but they are so much more - they offer the promise of infinite stories to tell, and infinite ways to tell them.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Violence
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